ABSTRACT

The study investigated the effects of concept mapping and team pair solo instructional strategies on students' academic achievement and retention in Biology in secondary schools in Abia State. Six research questions were posted and six hypotheses formulated. 3x2 factorial quasi experimental design was utilized. The population of the study was 6,781 SS 1 Biology students in 2017/2018 academic session in Aba Education Zone, Abia State. A multi-stage sampling techniques was used to sample 87 SS1 Biology students in three randomly selected intact classes served as the sample. The instrument used for data collection was Biology Achievement and Retention Test (BART) which comprises of 60 multiple choice items. The instrument was validated by three experts. The reliablity coefficient of the BART using K-R20 was 0.75. Mean and standard deviation was used to analyse the research questions while Analysis of co-varience (ANCOVA) was used to test the Hypothesis. Results of the data analysis revealed that the students achieved and retained better in Biology when taught using Team pair solo strategy, than when taught with Concept mapping and Lecture method. The female achieved and retained significantly better than the male students when taught Biology using Team pair solo strategy than those taught using Concept mapping and Lecture method. There was a significant difference in the achievement and retention mean scores of male and female students in Biology when taught with the three strategies in favour of the female taught with team pair solo strategy. Recommendations were made among which are the need to give more emphasis in the Biology teacher's training programs on the use of Team pair solo instructional strategy; also teacher's should deliberately encourage the students to participate with full interest to innovative methods such as Concept mapping and Team pair solo Instructional strategies in order to be relevant in his students centered and Information age, least they are relegated to the background.